How Not To Be a Scoundrel
by partlysunny
Summary: Vanity, thy name is Scorpius Malfoy/ Scorpius, Rose, and a little lesson in the afterhours of Hogwarts.


**How Not To Be a Scoundrel**

Bethany Nott broke up with him as he was on his way to do his rounds.

He had never been so happy to hear the words, "We need to talk" in his life.

"I don't know, I think you've been really… distant lately," she said, twirling a lock of hair around her finger as he sat on the edge of his bed and slipped on his shoes.

"Distant," he repeated, suppressing a smile only because he was supposed to be serious right now. His girlfriend (of one month, but his girlfriend nonetheless) was breaking up with him, for God's sake.

_Best day ever._

"I don't know," she said again. "I'm just not feeling it anymore, Scor."

He nodded, tying his shoes and getting to his feet. Beth was sitting cross legged on the loveseat in the corner of his Head Boy dorm, looking anxious.

"I know," he told her. He crossed the room and gave her a quick (_very_ quick) peck on the cheek and made his way out of the dorm.

"We're still friends, right?"

He glanced back at her, now unable to keep the smile back. Goddamn it, he was Scorpius Malfoy, the king of Hogwarts, he was single again and he was pure _gold_. What wasn't there to smile about?

"Of course, Beth," he replied, and he left his dorm, absently whistling a tune as he walked.

He was supposed to patrol the sixth and seventh floor with the Head Girl, that Weasley chit tonight. Usually, rounds were a torrid affair that he would much rather forego for the warmth of (someone else's) bed but tonight he was so giddy with the relief of finally being shot of Beth that he hardly minded that his next few hours would be spent in the company of a Weasley in Gryffindor territory. Indeed, when he met her by the portrait of the Fat Lady, the meeting place they had agreed on that morning, he gave her a winning smile and said, "Good evening, rosebud," in the most cheery tone of voice he had ever addressed her with.

"_Somebody_ is in a good mood today," Rose said, pushing herself off the wall by the portrait and leading the way down the hall. Scorpius followed at a leisurely pace. "I don't even want to ask—"

"Well, if you _must_ know," he said, rolling his eyes. "I just broke up with my girlfriend."

Rose glanced at him from the corner of her eye. "Only you would be happy because of a breakup."

"Breakups make the world go round," he deadpanned with a wink.

"Why'd you even go out with her if you were just going to break up with her after—how long has it been, two weeks?"

"A month, but I would've taken the two weeks if I could," he muttered. Actually, he would've taken just one night, but Beth was a family friend and his mother would have killed him, so he had to endure until she got sick of him. If only he'd known it would eat up an entire month of his life, then he never even would have bothered.

"Well, it's a good thing that she's as big a skank as you are, or else I'd actually feel sorry for her," Rose said dispassionately, tucking her flaming red hair behind her ear.

"You shouldn't feel sorry for _her_, you should feel sorry for _me_," Scorpius said, draping an arm over his eyes dramatically. "Be proud, Weasley, I survived Bethany Nott. Now, I'm invincible."

"Proud," she scoffed, giving him a look. She quickened her pace and Scorpius matched it easily. "Actually, I'm disgusted."

"If I had a Galleon every time I heard that—"

"I'm disgusted because you think you can use girls the way normal human beings use tissues."

"Now, Rosie," he said, trying to ease the conversation back into friendly discussion. He did not want to have to spend the remainder of their rounds with an angry Rose Weasley (he still had a bruise to show for the last time such an event had occurred). "You can't blame _me_. After all, I don't force girls to go out with me. It's not my fault I'm irresistible."

"Oh, trust me, lots of girls find you perfectly resistible."

He chuckled softly, nudging her side with his elbow. "I know that you, at least, find me irresistible."

She swatted his arm. "If that's what you think, then you must have a different definition of the word, Malfoy. Or else, you're thicker than I thought."

Scorpius glanced at her, and found himself wondering, suddenly, why he had never bothered with her.

"Weasley," he said, because he was Scorpius Malfoy and he had no filter to keep his every thought from his mouth, "why haven't you and I gone out yet?"

"Out where?" she asked absently.

"Out, you know. On a date."

She froze in her tracks suddenly, and Scorpius, who had been trailing slightly behind her, had a second's warning to stop himself before he crashed right into her.

"A date?" she repeated, flabbergasted. "What brought that up, all of a sudden?"

"I wouldn't say it was all of a sudden," he muttered, lying through his teeth, but he knew agreeing with her would only prove her theory that he was a bastard. And Scorpius was nothing if not vain.

Rose snorted. "Not likely, Malfoy. I have standards. I have a rule."

"I have a rule, too," Scorpius said cheerily. "'First, learn the rules, then break them.' What's yours?"

"That's two, first of all, and second, they're not really rules."

She turned on her heel and continued down the hall. Scorpius jogged a bit to catch up with her, then met her furious pace with ease.

"Then what rules do you have?" he asked, slipping his hands into the pockets of his robes. "I'm pretty sure they won't count as rules either."

Rose scoffed again. "I only have one: I don't date scoundrels."

He placed a hand over his heart, giving her a wounded look in that overdramatic way he knew she hated. "And you think I'm a scoundrel?"

"I don't think you really have to ask."

"I think I deserve to know why you think I'm a scoundrel. I don't like it when a pretty girl thinks ill of me."

Rose's cheeks reddened. Merlin, with her eyes cast at the floor and her face coloring from his compliment, she almost looked like the shy girl he knew she wasn't. _Curious_.

"Well, if you honestly don't know," she said, "I think you're a scoundrel because of the complete disregard you have for people's feelings—"

"Hey now, last I checked, Beth was the one who broke up with _me_, I'm the victim here—"

"Oh, don't make me laugh," she snapped, tossing her hair over her shoulder and smacking him with several curly red locks that smelled like strawberries. "You probably wanted out from the start but stuck around for a reason I'm not entirely sure of, meanwhile making things very difficult for her so that she'd have no choice but to leave so that you could use the 'scorned boy who's girlfriend left him' as a ploy to get more girls running after you!"

She was slightly breathless at the end of her rant and then glued her eyes to the floor again as though ashamed at her outburst (the shy girl making her appearance again). Scorpius just looked at her.

"Oh, my God, how did you know?" he wanted to explain, but bit it back with great difficulty and instead said, "You have a very strange imagination."

"You know I'm right, Malfoy."

"And that's why I'm a scoundrel?"

"Yes. Exactly."

"And you don't date scoundrels, right?"

"No, I do not."

"So, what type of boy _do _you date?" he asked casually, trying to figure her out. Vaguely, he recalled catching her snogging Ethan Boot in the Charms corridor one afternoon on his way to lunch and then there was the time she dated Colin Finnigan and he'd announced that he loved her in the middle of the great hall. Both were what he'd consider as "good boys", boys who loved their girlfriends and bought them chocolates and—

"Oh, I get it now," he said, cutting her off before she could even start. "You want to be _wooed_, well why didn't you just _say_ so?"

Rose's cheeks burned. "I didn't say—"

"No, no, your rule makes sense now," he said, snickering.

"Well, what's wrong with that?" she retorted, stopping again and placing her hands on her hips. "Courting a girl gives her a sense of self worth. Going straight to the point, like you do, just makes her feel used—"

"Let's stop talking about you in the third person," he interrupted, whipping out his wand and waving it once. A red rose blossomed out of the tip, followed by a long stem with a single leaf. He offered it to her, watching carefully for her reaction.

"Nice try," she said, frowning at the flower. "But I hate roses. They're such a cliché. And they smell weird."

"You don't like roses?" he asked, thrown. "Everyone likes roses!"

"I'm not everyone," she said, shrugging.

"What do you like, then?"

"I'm not going to tell you," she grinned, shaking her head at him. "If you're trying to woo a girl, you can't _ask_ her what she wants. You have to try and tell for yourself."

"So, you admit that you want to be wooed," he said, pumping his fist in victory. "One for one, Scorpius Malfoy."

"One for _two_," she corrected, pointing a finger at him. "You gave me the wrong flower."

"Merlin's beard, how the hell should I know what your favorite flower is?"

"If you really want to woo the girl, you'll know," was the cryptic reply.

Right. Hang the flowers, then. There was no way any of this guru talk would work with him anyway.

"What about a love poem?" he asked, wriggling his eyebrows. "Girls are suckers for love poems."

"As if you'd know any," she said, rolling her eyes.

He leaned back against the wall, Banishing the rose and tucking his wand back into his pocket. "You're saying that you don't think I'd know any love poems?"

"Yes. That's what I'm saying."

"'I once had a heart,'" he recited, "'and it was true, but now it's gone from me to you. So take care of it as I have done because now you have two and I have none.'"

That look on her face was _priceless_. Scorpius didn't want anything in the entire world at that moment; just to be there as Rose stared at him in awe was the icing on the cake of an already very good day.

"Don't be so surprised, Weasley," he said, reaching over to place a finger under her chin and snap her jaw shut for her. She didn't need to know that he had only memorized the lines because Annie Brown had mentioned that love poems made her hot and Scorpius had been looking to get lucky that night.

"Two for three," he added, smiling.

She took a step back, out of his reach, and his finger touched the side of her jaw as she moved. She had very soft skin. "You're still a scoundrel."

"A scoundrel who knows love poems," he said, laughing. "I do believe that's an oxymoron."

"In your case, they should make an exception."

He laughed again, then marveled at the phenomenon. Scorpius was not a boy who was easily amused. So why had he been smiling, laughing, and joking all through rounds, which were usually the worst part of his day?"

He took a closer look at Rose. Becoming friends with her had never actually been a priority of his—she was too intelligent for him and he preferred his girls blonde, thanks—and even now, they were acquaintances at best, just two people who worked together and shared a common room. But she wasn't half bad, actually. He was having fun here with this playful banter.

"Rose, I have a proposition for you," he said, pushing himself off the wall.

"I don't like the sound of that," she said warily.

"Oh, you will." He cracked his knuckles, putting a real show on prolonging the moment, then said, "If I can guess your favorite flower, will you go out with me?"

She raised her eyebrows. "You're dying to make it a three for three, aren't you?"

"It's killing me."

She paused, chewing her lip. "I have a rule, you know."

"The one about not going out with scoundrels?"

"The very same."

"Well," he said, his eyes twinkling, "if I can get you your favorite flower without coercing it out of you, then I'm not much of a scoundrel, am I?"

Rose narrowed her eyes at him. He thrust his hand in the void between them, and she hesitantly took it, her tiny hand completely obscured by his much bigger one.

And the next morning, when Rose walked into the great hall and found two dozen fresh yellow tulips spread all around her usual spot over at the Gryffindor table, she didn't even stop to consider how he had figured it out, or that little Lily Luna was ten Galleons richer because of a bit of information she had passed to one Head Boy.

But who cared, really? Rose no longer thought he was a scoundrel and for some reason that he didn't understand (yet), that meant quite a lot.

The smile on her face as she lifted a bright tulip to her nose actually meant quite a lot.

**-FIN-**

**A/N: This fic is in response to the Character, Object, Emotion Challenge and the Weekly Challenge for the week of July 23 over at the HPFC forum. **


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